


circumventing heat death

by newyorktopaloalto



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Character Death, Depending on Your Interpretation, Gen, Psychological Horror, but only technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 08:12:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8525485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newyorktopaloalto/pseuds/newyorktopaloalto
Summary: The sheer enormity of the unknown would unsettle him were he prone to that sort of disposition. As it stood, he bore the weight of the ethereal calling and endured.





	

**Author's Note:**

> First Wolf fic, I don't own the characters or setting— just the plot; first fic in a long time that I've used any sort of experimental style. 
> 
> Also, I don't like Kepler, so I was (pleasantly?) surprised when I was two paragraphs in and realized I was writing with him as the explicit narrator. 
> 
> Interpretations of the entire story are up to the reader: I wrote this in mind with two disparate explanations, but I'm curious to what you all think (what you write is up to the reader and I wrote this piece really hoping to embody this principle.) 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Voices followed him through the gangways— indecipherable and whispered, almost lilting if not for the shiver that seemed to chill his very being every time it finished, still obfuscated, into his ears; the sheer enormity of the unknown would unsettle him were he prone to that sort of disposition. As it stood, he bore the weight of the ethereal calling _the universe waits for no man_ and endured. _endurance meant nothing if what was to come was already here_ but he was already here and he had a job to do. 

He always had a job to do. 

The steel underneath his fingertips did not break before his grip and as he hauled himself forward _momentum— the one thing you can’t survive in space without and whoever said Pryce and Carter knew everything there was to know_ his foot caught and he spun into a closed bulkhead. Turning, furious, drops of blood suspended in air one moment and splattered against his cheek as he lunged forward to— nothing. 

There was never anything when he turned. 

Laughter echoed, bouncing across the empty halls and he clenched his jaw; the dentist would have a field day, if he should ever actually make it back to Earth and shouldn’t he be aching for blue skies and brown earth instead of the emptiness and apathy that the word connoted? No, because the _impertinent, audacious_ encompassing whispers were nothing more than gnats; incessant and buzzing, trying to get your attention and he wouldn’t let them, he would bare his teeth and snarl and fight because that was what he had been trained to do— no matter what. 

And he would survive, damn the entreating _melodic, harmonious_ pleas, at any ends and he had always known that. He pulled himself forward once more, giggling following behind— always at his pace and unrelenting— and forced his tongue to separate from the roof of his mouth. 

“Hera—“ 

A gust of air rose the hair on the back of his neck and he swallowed down the rest of his sentence. Hera did not answer _would never answer because in the middle of the everlasting night nothing existed except for him and the—_

He continued on. 

_always, always, continuing on_

##### ***

He awoke, inhaling sharply through his nose as his braces prevented him from shooting upright _every night was the same and weariness flowed though his veins, a constant and aching pulse_

“—ffel have gone to their bunks.” 

“Yes.” 

The answer was ground out of him as he undid the thick velcro securing his chest and torso to the bed, letting himself hover as he stuck his feet into his shoes. Not that shoes would matter. _not that anything would matter soon_

“Keep systems running, I’ll handle patrol.” 

“The same as every night, Colonel.” 

He wished he could staple its mouth shut. Goddamn Maxwell and her goddamn _eyes blank and fingers trembling— he had never seen her so piteous in their association before_ but that was then and this is now. 

They weren’t expecting solar flares— hadn’t had one for almost three weeks— but the hull still creaked and shifted as though it were being slowly torn apart. The steel, as always, was cold and thick under his hand. The groaning seemed to alight once more with his contact and _burned, betrayed, expected_ he jerked away. 

He moved, slowly and methodically _the time he took didn’t matter everything he saw was eternal and so he must be too_ deeper into the ship. Everything was quiet here and his dark gaze flitted restlessly to the nothingness that surrounded him. 

Everything was quiet here. 

Finally, minutely and at an agonizing rate, his shoulders dropped and he closed his eyes. A moment later _but was it a moment or five million of them? he could never tell, the light was the same—_

The light was not the same. 

A opalescent mist gathered in the center of the room, swaying in a breeze that did not, could not, exist. His eyesight hazed the longer he watched its gentle _entrancing and effervescent_ motions. And then he was moving, booted feet pushing off a railing to get there _faster, faster, he needed to see what it was, what it could be_ and he was almost there, could almost touch it. 

He stopped. No. _yes_

Not today _maybe tomorrow_

A tendril untangled itself from its swirling brethren, beckoning him just a few more inches. His fingertips twitched; he fisted his hands against his sides, locking his elbows. A brush of words whispered against his skin. 

It wasn’t quiet anymore. _it never was— it was just waiting, biding its time until he let his guard down and he did he did and it was closer than ever_

His shoulders hunched against his ears and he turned back the way he came. 

The quiet had always made him unproductive.

##### ***

It was better during the day. 

Noise flooded the corridors, but it was a noise easily explained by an active crew _their laughter was brittle and his contempt was nothing more than trying_ who seemed to be doing everything in their power to _unnerve, befuddle_ annoy him. 

His ribs hit the railing— and he could have sworn it hadn’t been there three seconds ago— and he let out a startled grunt. 

“Are you okay, Colonel?” 

“Jacobi.” 

“That railing came outta nowhere.” 

“One more word and I’ll throw you in the brig.” 

Jacobi’s smirk slid off his face and that just— didn’t make any sense _was it him or was it everyone else?_ considering this was normal. It was normal, he was normal, it had to be everyone else. 

Laughter echoed around him and he whipped his head but it was just _discordant, familiar, poleaxing_ Jacobi, whose reaction had come too late. 

He shifted, swallowing against a cavernous bitterness. 

Jacobi glided over _there was nothing for him to have pushed off of_ and he scrambled back from the railing, reaching desperately for something away _closer_

He hit the wall as Jacobi floated in the center of the walkway. 

“Maybe you should get that bruise checked out by Hilbert, Colonel.” 

His bruise wasn’t visible. 

“You might have a cracked rib or two.” 

He hadn’t even grunted an explicative after the initial surprise. 

“Yes.” He could only agree. _he didn’t want to know what would happen if he disagreed_

His eyes never left Jacobi’s as he moved further back; he turned the corner and felt a crawling on his skin, the cold stare boring into his slicing deeper than Cutter could ever hope to achieve and what the fuck was wrong with him? What was wrong with everyone? _he was alone— he always had been and always would be— eternal and verging on… desperation_ He was verging on shooting his ballistics specialist. 

The days were— _relentless, slogging and exhaustive_ tolerable.

##### ***

Getting Eiffel out of the comms room was easy. Dark hair— Maxwell?— flounced in his peripheral as his communications officer literally somersaulted out of the room, theatrics in full-swing as always. Wherever they went, he could not figure out and he should talk to Hera about that— there was a nagging, he had already had this thou— _he was forgetting, what else had he forgotto—_

He needed to contact Cutter with the mission status; Eiffel was already out of the room— with Maxwell, if he recalled correctly. 

The line rang seven times before a cheerful— headache inducing— tone picked up. 

“No news. The solar flare didn’t turn up anything we didn’t already know.” 

“That’s— disappointing.” 

“I’m sorry, sir.” 

A silence hung in the air and he shifted— sound had become an old acquaintance. 

“Don’t apologize, Colonel. Just. Do. Better.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

The line hung up as he opened his mouth to voice for— there was nothing to say though, was there? _help, they needed to get away now before it was everything they knew and would become_ and he gripped his hands against one another _he wasn’t praying he never had and never would_ as they shook. 

“We need to leave.” 

“You can never leave, Colonel.” 

His head shot up, the disembodied voice gripping into his sinew. 

“Hera?” 

There was no response. 

“Hera?” 

The quiet became a cloying humidity. 

_he hadn’t been speaking_

##### ***

“The last month has been—“

_an existential terror encroaching in from the edges of the known universe_

“— weird.” 

“What do you mean by weird, lieutenant?” 

Minkowski heaved a sigh and narrowed her eyes; he raised a brow and waited. 

“Jacobi, Lovelace, Maxwell,” she swallowed, “Eiffel. They’ve been—“

He raised his hand to stay the rest of her sentence. She had noticed. An acerbic chuckle made its way up his throat and he stymied it before it could be detectable— out of all the people on this godforsaken station— at least it wasn’t Hilbert. 

“Just keep watching, lieutenant.” 

_this wasn’t normal, he wasn’t acting normal, but he couldn’t not anymore not when every waking moment was paranoia and the waking moments lasted longer and longer and soon he would only be awake_

Minkowski cleared her throat as a brush of words passed him— louder now, he could almost understand them. 

“Are you… okay, Colonel?” 

“Lieutenant?” 

“Yes, sir?” 

“Leave my office. And remember to close the door behind you.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

She paused in the doorway, indecision making her hesitation obvious— eerily still except for the breeze, shifting the flyaway pieces of her loosening bun. Out of the entire crew, Minkowski’s lack of militaristic precision almost came as a blow; he needed to discipline her, make an example _she was facing the same exhaustible daunting fragility he was holding onto by a thread_ discipline, for once, could wait. 

“Are you okay, Colonel?” He would grin, ironic humor in the fact that her asking after him looked exactly like he imagined she would if he were preparing to pull her teeth out. Without anesthetic. Or even a shot of alcohol. 

“Do I have to ask you to leave a second time?” 

“No, sir. And I’ll keep an eye out.” 

He glared at her until the door shut. There was a shimmering from where the door didn’t seal properly; he resolutely decided to ignore it. 

Not to-fucking-day. 

_but how many more could he hold against the immutable?_

##### ***

Amorphous blobs of color and refracted light transformed _became were always were_ into distinct shapes; he didn’t know how long it had been, how many times he had contacted Cutter, whether or not he missed a security briefing. No, he hadn’t missed anything— he just couldn’t remember any of it. His nails bit into the middle of his palm, the spike of pain grounding him as he tried to remember what he had just been doing— the shapes grew limbs and shadows and had stars where their eyes should be— 

He was going to get Lovelace’s report on the newest data set. No, that wasn’t right, it was Maxwell’s data set. Twisting himself to head back the way he came, his fingers caught against a sharp corner of— something; he grimaced, shaking off the minute welling of blood the accident gave off. He couldn’t remember when the little physical tortures became so commonplace he almost missed them when they stopped coming. _he’d take any physical torture if it meant the opaque glimmering shadows would just stop please stop following him corrupting them all until there was nothing left of them to be taken back home nothing left of him at all and why should there even fucking be after all_ The blood spattered on the hem of his shirt as he moved through it in his pursuit to the— where was he going? 

Anywhere but where he was; the figures pulsed here, whenever he was in the corridors or common areas, sapping out everything he had, growing brighter all the while. Still though, he couldn’t stay in his quarters or office all day— he needed to keep up the pretense— everything was normal. Everything had to be because if it wasn’t, well, he’d probably be out of the airlock faster than he could say the word ‘mutiny.’ 

There didn’t seem a point, before, in listening to the whispers, letting their nonsense flow over him until he understood _understanding came more naturally then breathing and sometimes he forgot to do the latter when he was attempting the former when everything became ragged at the edges and the stars in what should have been the eyes bore into the fibre of himself pulling up up fist around his heart body splayed in a cruel imitation of a crucifixion_ but once he did start listening— they told something worse than lies; they crooned the malicious secrets of the universe and of the eternity within it. During the night they giggled the inconsequential comings and goings of his crew, like their lives were jokes— like his life was a joke to them. It probably was in the same way Hilbert’s life was a joke to him, or his to Cutter. Or his to Lovelace. Or his to any damn well one on this shithole of a deep-space station. 

The crew was plotting against him, always had been— he was never unaware of their inept planning— but now… something had changed them. It had been changing him too _soon soon he could feel it gripping him tighter unyielding and all-encompassing_ slowly and almost invisibly. The truths changed nothing, their presence changed nothing, and the stars had changed—

He needed to regain control.

##### ***

The stars had changed everything.

##### ***

“Colonel?”

“Yes, lieutenant?” 

“There’s a problem in the aft deck hanger bay. Jacobi wanted your opinion on it before he and Lovelace did anything.” 

He nodded and pushed himself out of the mess, Minkowski trailing behind him. She looked perturbed, holding an expression that didn’t fit quite right on her face. The figures hung over him, growing taller and leering down as she placed her eyes on anything not him. 

“Lieutenant, what’s the problem?” 

“Something about the integrity, or I guess, lack thereof, on a piece of paneling. I’m sorry sir, when Jacobi gets going, I can’t really decipher him.” 

The stars shone out brighter from the beings, accompanied by the almost blinding glow coming from the windows as he entered the hanger bay. He looked out of the window, squinting against the light but unable to tear himself away. Abruptly, screeching, there was quiet. Flipping himself around, he stared— uncomprehending and aghast— as the steel bulkhead locked into place. 

The red light below the intercom lit up and, feeling seconds pass like eons, he reached over to click it on. 

There was static for a moment. 

“Thank you for your cooperation, Colonel.” 

“It’s not like I knew.” 

A giggle that was them— Maxwell, Hera, Eiffel, everyone— and his lips twisted upwards, a snarl choking in his throat. Of course, the stars had been in their eyes for a while now. He knew it, he ignored it, and now… 

“Of course you knew.” 

“Why?” 

“Why not?” came the first response. 

“It’s time.” 

“It’s always been time.” 

“Did you really think you could get away?” 

“We need to make sure it gets done.” 

“Your mission was always at a failure rate of 72.59%. Ours was not.” 

“Don’t worry, Warren, you’ll see why soon. Just breathe and remember—“

_today today today_

##### ***

He took a breath, braced himself, and as he froze his eyes burned with starlight.


End file.
